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Once you inject God into the equation and say that evolution was guided by the divine, you and I are no longer using the same definition of 'evolution'. My evolution is a scientific theory. If yours requires God to work, it is not a scientific theory.
kurt, I get what you are saying here, but it rubs me the wrong way for a few reasons. First, the idea that God and nature are incompatible. If I believe God created nature to be exactly as it is, then all nature requires God to work. Doesn't make it any less natural.
From a different angle, we talk about determinism and free will often. But what about before men existed? Is there any reason that the natural world without mankind (or sentience at all to be more general) should have any self-determination? From my perspective, the natural universe was playing out a script written from the very Beginning. When it comes to theological discussion of what happened before the mankind (sentience), it would be impossible to tell the difference between an interventionist God and a Deist God if both were omnipotent, omniscient Creators. If you don't believe in human free will, then it would be impossible to tell the difference at all.
Secondly, the idea that mutations are "random" and that evolution happened by "chance" are not theologically neutral statements. Randomness, luck and chance are philosophical constructs with huge theological implications. The idea that any number of outcomes could happen, only one does, and there is no reason for that specific outcome to happen is just a step down the road to nihilism. It would mean the "natural" events occur for no reason, and there is no overall greater purpose to either the existence of nature or natural phenomenon. It's fine if you believe that, but it is most certainly a very strong theological statement.
IMHO, science does just fine describing mechanisms, such as mutation and selection. When you start making "guided" or "random" an essential part of a scientific theory, then you are espousing philosophy and theology and not science.
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